# Most common reason to be Pitted Appears to be Dishonesty? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 13, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422 "2021-07-13T20:44:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/302 "2021-07-20T16:56:26Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Oh look - another one of these gratuitous jabs. > > Yes, it’s terrible how some people attack others over and over for having different views. Personal insults from conservatives don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/303 "2021-07-20T16:57:38Z")
What does this even mean? I am not attacking anyone for believing however they want. My complaint is that the hive mind of this board stifles dissent. > [@Babale](#): > > Personal insults from conservatives don’t count. Which poster did I insult? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/304 "2021-07-20T16:58:34Z")
All the members of the “hive mind”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/305 "2021-07-20T16:58:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Which poster did I insult? Which posters did you have in mind as the recipients of the “holy scripture as given by God to the members of this board”? It’s not just you, of course. This thread is littered with such potshots. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/306 "2021-07-20T16:59:50Z")
Then it isn’t personal, is it? It’s a collective attitude that I dispute. You might as well say that nobody can attack Trump because then it is an improper personal insult to anyone on the board who voted for him. This is weak sauce. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/307 "2021-07-20T17:00:16Z")
If I said, “UltraVires and people like him have no capacity for independent thought” that would obviously be an insult. Yet you (and others) constantly attack other members of the board as being part of a “hive mind” outside the Pit. But I guess it doesn’t lower the level of discourse when YOU do it? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/308 "2021-07-20T17:00:52Z")
You mentioned me by name. That makes it personal. Why is that distinction so difficult? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/309 "2021-07-20T17:02:00Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Then it isn’t personal, is it? It’s a collective attitude that I dispute. Ah - the unspecified “Usual Suspects” argument. As long as the waveform isn’t collapsed by actually naming anyone, the insult will never actualize. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/310 "2021-07-20T17:03:46Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > How is it threadshitting? The topic is about whether vaccines should be mandatory. He is complaining that people who have quarantined for a year are demanding that others get vaccinated so they can go on vacation. Not interested. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/311 "2021-07-20T17:09:11Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > You mentioned me by name. That makes it personal. Why is that distinction so difficult? So your alleged hivemind consists entirely of people who aren’t posters? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/312 "2021-07-20T17:13:44Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > > [@Gyrate](#): > > > > And if the person in question simply keeps repeating an unambiguously false statement? What then? How shall we deal with people determined to poison rational debate in this manner? Leave them unchallenged? Hijack the thread to rebut them over and over again? What if they escalate with further falsehoods? What if they persistently misrepresent other posters’ statements, as many have been wont to do? What shall we do with people who persist in debating in bad faith? > > Pitting that poster can’t stop a single one of those behaviours. They can even mute it if they choose. It doesn’t improve debate or make the board a better place. All it does is allow you to vent your ire. Is that really worth the costs? It does one other thing. It allows posters to comment on a perceived pattern of behavior. For example, if someone makes a large number of comments that “skirt the truth”, all of them implying falsehoods but none undeniably so, a poster can gather a lot of such statements from several places into a single pit thread. That would be an unacceptable hijack of most other threads. Also, at least under the current rules of engagement, it is not the job of the mods to rule on “truth”. Perhaps for selfish reasons, i would like to keep it that way. And it can be hard to distinguish between intentional trolling and someone who is just a little dim and sincerely holds ridiculous ideas. The mods aren’t mind readers. While of course the mods try to keep up on the opus of posters who get reported a lot, sometimes a pit thread can put a poster in perspective. There are downsides to the pit, too. But i see these as upsides. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/313 "2021-07-20T17:14:27Z")
Also, it’s time for my all too frequent reminder to dial it back, and keep this appropriate for ATMB. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/314 "2021-07-20T19:41:12Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I think it is a good forum for blasting the guy in front of you in the checkout line, or Trump, or Biden, or your asshole neighbor that plays his music too loud. I don’t see that it’s needed for that. Trump or Biden can be criticized in the Politics category, and often are. People are currently going on about the guy in the checkout line or the overly loud neighbor in Things You Shouldn’t Need To Tell People in MPSIMS. It’s true we can only blast them in certain forms there. But I don’t know that we need a forum purely to call strangers names in. As I’ve said, I think it’s useful to have one in which we can discuss behavior of posters in ways that aren’t restricted to behind the scenes reporting of individual posts to the mods. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/315 "2021-07-20T19:42:12Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > Correction: Good thing I mentioned about doing those facts, cites and debating first, the optional final step to insulting in the pit comes when seeing a poster who is doubling and tripling down with cites that were shown already to be lousy. Yes, it is usually the case that many of the supporting cites coming from right wing sources of info are bad and it does not matter that others do show to an opponent how bad they are, the pitted ones usually do ignore the debunkings too before they are taken to the pit. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/316 "2021-07-20T20:23:15Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Would you all be happy if the Pit remained but without the ability to pit board members? Yes. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Also, at least under the current rules of engagement, it is not the job of the mods to rule on “truth”. Perhaps for selfish reasons, i would like to keep it that way. And it can be hard to distinguish between intentional trolling and someone who is just a little dim and sincerely holds ridiculous ideas. The mods aren’t mind readers. While of course the mods try to keep up on the opus of posters who get reported a lot, sometimes a pit thread can put a poster in perspective. Finding trolls seems to be the most compelling reason given so far for keeping the Pit. (I don’t know how you do it at all; if I was a mod I’d probably give people way too much benefit of the doubt.) But you could keep the omnibus troll thread for that, and considerably tighten up the rules on pitting other posters to get rid of the endless mudslinging threads. Also, would it be possible to hide the Pit from trust level 0 & 1 users in order to avoid scaring off newbies? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/317 "2021-07-20T20:25:14Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > would it be possible to hide the Pit from trust level 0 & 1 users in order to avoid scaring off newbies? Hmm, that’s an interesting idea, and almost certainly possible. I’ll mention that to the mod loop next time the topic of “changing board parameters” comes up. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/318 "2021-07-20T22:42:55Z")
Is the whole trust level thing even active now? ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/319 "2021-07-20T22:59:58Z")
Seems to be on some level. Every profile I’ve looked at shows as TL2, Member. Started a thread in ATMB to ask about it. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/320 "2021-07-20T23:04:29Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > While of course the mods try to keep up on the opus of posters who get reported a lot, sometimes a pit thread can put a poster in perspective. This is problematic to me. People who don’t want to participate in flaming are told to keep out of the Pit. But then the mods are going to use Pit threads to make modding decisions. There’s no rule about not twisting the OP of a Pit thread, using links out of context, cherry-picking, etc. In fact, that’s been the history of Pit threads that that’s allowed. If that’s going to be the evidence for a mod action, the Pittee should be able to defend themselves without getting flamed in the process. If the use of PIt threads is going to be used for mod purposes, IMO they should be put in ATMB where the Pittee can defend themselves without getting flamed. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422/321 "2021-07-20T23:13:36Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > Seems to be on some level. Every profile I’ve looked at shows as TL2, Member. Started a thread in ATMB to ask about it. Yeah, I thought that was how it got disabled: by setting everybody to “member”. Maybe I misunderstood something. I’ll have to look at the ATMB thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-common-reason-to-be-pitted-appears-to-be-dishonesty/946422.md?page=17)